


burnt out dead ember

by visionary_cat



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Bondage, Consent Issues, Dark, Guilt, M/M, Trauma, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visionary_cat/pseuds/visionary_cat
Summary: The one where Bodhi asks Cassian to tie him up to help process his trauma with Bor Gullet. It gets out of hand.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook
Kudos: 15





	burnt out dead ember

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. If you’d like further clarification on content warnings, skip to the ending notes for a more detailed breakdown.
> 
> i really don't know where this one came from, either.

Cassian has never been a good man, but he hopes, at least, that he’s been a strong enough one. Tenacious enough to complete his missions. Loyal to the rebellion to the bone. He is worth every credit on the bounty that the Empire offers on his head, and _more_.

After Scarif, there’s the next mission and the next. It’s business as usual, Cassian on solo missions or accompanied by K-2SO, as if nothing really changed, even with the Death Star blown out of the sky. 

Jyn Erso is busy leading a squad chasing an Imperial special forces team that had murdered its way through one of Saw Gerrera’s remaining cells. Baze and Chirrut have returned to Jedha to protect as many people that they can on the dying moon, where Imperials have returned to further plunder. 

And then there’s Bodhi Rook. In between assignments, Cassian catches glimpses of him in the new base at the Mako-Ta Space Docks. Goggles on, dutifully working alongside Alliance mechanics on starship maintenance and repair. They’re not exactly friends, but he and Cassian exchange cordial nods and amiable greetings, sitting together in the mess hall, swapping stories about what they’ve been up to.

But he doesn’t quite expect for Bodhi to ask him something like this. 

“Why me?” Cassian asks, as Bodhi walks into his quarters with a spool of wire and an air of grim determination. 

“I don’t know who else I can ask.” Bodhi is leaning against the doorway, his long hair hanging down his shoulders; his brow set into a grimaced furrow; soft dark spirals crescenting underneath his eyes. “This isn’t -- isn’t ideal. I almost bombed the last run.”

Quietly, he tells Cassian the full story: two days ago, he’d gone to pick up some medical supplies for the Alliance. Bodhi piloted a cargo ship with the smuggler Sana Starros as his guide, for it was one of her contacts on Nar Shaddaa that was the seller. 

Right before they could leave, Imperials burst into the spaceport. Sana Starros had quickly made up a bantha-shit story about taking Bodhi in for his bounty, slapping on a pair of stun-cuffs on his wrists, and…

“I freaked out,” Bodhi says, his eyes averted. “Remembered Saw Gerrera and what had happened to me. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. I should be prepared for anything as a rebel now, even if I spend most of my time on-base.”

Of course Bodhi hasn’t received any undercover training or interrogation desensitization or anything of the sort. He’s a pilot and occasional mechanic. Involuntarily, Cassian’s tongue darts to the back of his teeth, running against the poisonous crystal in his right farthest molar.

Cassian has never had the chance to bite down. Not yet, anyway. There is a morbid running joke among the Alliance’s intelligence operatives, wondering what it will taste like, when captured by Imperials and pushed far enough: _mint--paricha--sunfruit--candyfloss._ There’s a guy in one of Cracken’s strike teams who swears that it’s sour; there’s a Fulcrum operative who says that the Alliance’s scientists have neutralized the flavor and chemical so it’s undetectable and untraceable after activation.

Bodhi seems to have caught onto the gist of Cassian’s thoughts, and he says, hastily, defensively, “I’m not entirely untrained. Imperial pilots are required to go through sleep deprivation training for long flights. This is the same. Just a little bit different.” 

“No, I understand,” Cassian assures him. “You don’t want to be a liability.”

“Exactly.” Relief floods Bodhi’s voice, and his shoulders slump a fraction. “I don’t want to betray the Alliance, Captain. Everything here -- it matters to me. It’s why I left.” 

For a second, Cassian thinks it over, and makes a decision.

Bodhi’s not wrong. As a pilot, he should be able to keep his head on straight and not panic badly during inopportune moments. If he’s seeking Cassian’s assistance, specifically -- well, Cassian owes it to him, just like he owes Jyn, K-2 and the rest, the team who had gone through Scarif together and triumphed.

Cassian settles his hand on Bodhi’s shoulders. “Alright. I’ll help you. But I’m not going to throw everything at you right now. Go take a shower -- a nap -- grab a bite at the mess. Whatever you need to do. Then come back here at 22:00 hours.” 

Bodhi nods. “I will. Thanks.”

And before he leaves, he presses the spool of wire into Cassian’s palm, his eyes warm, his dark hair sweeping up behind him. It’s startling, Cassian thinks, because even if Bodhi _is_ haunted by the horrors that Gerrera had inflicted on him, he’s happy. He’s evolved beyond the near catatonic prisoner that Cassian had first sighted in the catacombs. Like there’s a starburst in his eyes. 

**

Right on the dot, Bodhi knocks on the door of his room, and Cassian lets him in with a lopsided smile, reaching over to press the keypad to lock the door behind him. Cassian doesn’t know how he’d explain this one if other Alliance members happen to stumble upon them. 

The lighting in the room is dim, wan. It makes Bodhi’s skin look awash in fluorescent moonlight. He’s pulled up his hair in a neat ponytail and trimmed away a little at his beard. He’s no longer clad in his flightsuit, but bland blue Alliance casual clothes, starbird emblazoned on the shirt sleeves.

With a jolt, Cassian realizes that it’s been a while since he’s invited anyone to his quarters. He’s had flings, from time to time. Fast and dirty one night stands. Grieving after losses, or high off of success from the last mission. He and his chosen partner drunk, for most of it. 

Yet this is not a frenzied coupling. It is an arrangement, and Cassian has promised to help. So, he eases Bodhi toward the chair in the room, set in front of the shuttered transparisteel windows.

Bodhi’s straight-backed, rigid. “Relax,” says Cassian, softly, standing behind him. “It’s going to hurt more if you’re too stiff.” 

The other man’s posture loosens. Cassian unwinds the length of wire, feeling the cold sharpness sting his fingertips, and he begins the process of drawing it around Bodhi. Slowly, bending over, he hooks the cord around the arms of the chair and extends it across Bodhi’s arms. The first step binding him down. 

A hitch of Bodhi’s breath. 

Then, a new metallic strand. Around his chest, now, his heart jackrabbiting underneath Cassian’s grasp. Bodhi’s stomach, his abdomen, the muscles tight while Cassian ties and ties. They’re good pathfinding knots, which Cassian has learned from his years in the field, tying down tents and ascending heights on difficult terrains -- Bodhi, he reflects, will not be able to get out of these restraints, not with sheer strength or flexibility.

Bodhi is breathing faster now. Oxygen sucked in, carbon dioxide gasped out, his body steeled with tension. 

Feather-light, Cassian brushes his trigger finger on the small exposed expanse on Bodhi’s waist, in between his shirt and trousers. “Do you want me to stop?” 

Bodhi shakes his head. Beads of sweat are gathered on his forehead. “Keep going.” 

Taking a step back, Cassian surveys his work. It’s not quite finished yet. He snaps out the wire again and pulls it around Bodhi’s shoulders. A twist of the ends, and they dig into the back of Bodhi’s neck. Silver puncturing and bringing forth bright bleeding droplets of red and a little wince of pain. 

“Shit,” Cassian murmurs. “Sorry.” He adjusts the angle of the tied ends. “It’s done. Tied up like a Life Day present. How long do you plan to stay like this?” 

Bodhi’s eyelids flutter. “I don’t know. However long I can, for tonight.”

Cassian nods. “If you want, I can look away. Finish filling out my last mission report. Play a game of solitary pazaak on my datapad. I’ll cut you loose when you say the word.” 

“No -- no.” There’s something urgent, desperate, in Bodhi’s voice. Then, with effort, more levelly, “I’d rather you talk me through this. Keep me company.” 

Well, if he insists. How do you entertain someone who’s asked you to tie them up to help dull the memory of a forceful interrogation? Perhaps by smoothing over the edges of it. 

Cassian lets out a short chuckle. “I suppose I’m playing the part of your interrogator, then.” He doesn’t know what makes him reach out, but he does, his fingers combing through the strands of Bodhi’s ponytailed hair while he stands in place behind him. “What do we talk about? Your secrets? I’ve heard from Norra Wexley that you’ve got quite the skill for sabacc. Are you using skifters?” 

“Never,” Bodhi replies, half-solemn. “That was only once. _Once._ ” 

“Ah, still counts. What happened?” 

Bodhi’s shoulder lifts a minute degree, the wrapped wire slightly twinging. “A couple years back, I made a bad bet on a race. Needed to come up with the creds right away. So I cheated one sabacc night. I got what I needed.” 

Cassian laughs again. “Dastardly.” His thumb circles around the band keeping Bodhi’s ponytail intact. 

Bodhi licks his lips. Seems to lean back into Cassian’s touch. “It probably doesn’t count as a secret. My copilot Misurno knew, though he didn’t say anything. Trusted me to make the Fentersohn run with him over the other cadets.” 

Cassian’s hand stills. He’s not the best with navigation, but after all these years, he knows his way around the galaxy well enough. “The Fentersohn run. You were delivering--” 

“Disruptors,” Bodhi says, quietly. “The route to Lasan. It could’ve been. I didn’t--I didn’t _know._ ”

“No,” Cassian says. “I guess you didn’t.” 

A shudder wracks Bodhi’s body. He strains against the restraints, and says, the words spilling out: “I never looked in the cargo hold. We never did. It was crates of things. Could be blasters. Comlinks. Bacta packs. Armor. We didn’t load or unload anything -- the droids or troopers did that.”

Cassian twists out the band from Bodhi’s ponytail, and Bodhi’s freed hair is a mass of smooth cascading black. “You didn’t ask.” 

“Not ‘til Eadu. Not ‘til the kyber from Jedha.” Bodhi says the name of his homeworld like a dejected sigh-- and Cassian looks at him, looks at this pilot bound up before him. He’d been the one to tell Bodhi about Alderaan -- Bodhi was in the medbay, recuperating from Scarif -- and he’d put his face in his hands, and breathed, and breathed, and breathed, until the medic had to tell Cassian to leave so he could sedate him. 

“Just the pilot,” Bodhi says, a thin sad smile on his lips. “I was always just the pilot.”

There is something shifting, Cassian can feel it. Like the roar of hyperspace and the collision of stars. 

“When Saw Gerrera’s monster had you,” Cassian says, and he mimes the enveloping grip of tentacles, his hands folding over Bodhi’s eyes, “did you show it this? All these things you did for the Empire?”

Bodhi’s eyelids flicker. “Cassian, I--”

Cassian’s hand slides to Bodhi’s mouth, silencing him. His other hand encloses around the back of his throat. Bodhi _writhes_ , his chest shuddering, his legs thrashing, and his breathing is the same as in the medbay before, staggered shaking hyperventilation. 

“Stay still,” Cassian says. The command comes out thick, hoarse. Bodhi makes a muffled sound against his hand, but Cassian only presses down harder, and his other hand releases Bodhi’s neck, following the trail of wire, until he’s touching, rubbing, stroking, Bodhi’s waist. 

Gasping, gasping, gasping, that staccato breath misting and wetting his palm. 

“You didn’t look,” Cassian bites out. “You didn’t _want_ to look. How far would you have gone, Bodhi, if you hadn’t found out about the Death Star? If the Empire scheduled you on its routes to its mines and its factories and its fields - if they had you transporting _people._ ” 

Just the pilot. 

Cassian pries his palm from Bodhi’s mouth. Bodhi sputters, coughs. And he answers: “ _I don’t know._ I’m trying--I’m trying--everything I do, I want to make it right.”

“I know you are,” Cassian says. “That’s why you’re putting yourself through this.”

He moves out from behind him. He’s standing in front of him now -- this trembling man wire-bound to a chair, who’d practically offered himself up to Cassian -- and he clutches the back of Bodhi’s head, fingers entwined in his hair, and he kisses him. Stubble against prickling beard, wet tongue swiping, seeking, kissed and kissed and kissed again. 

He dips his hand into Bodhi’s trousers, feeling the hard warm shape of his dick.

“Cassian,” Bodhi says, when they break apart, when his lips are dry and bitten and bleeding, while he arches and squirms as Cassian continues to touch. “Cassian -- _stop._ ”

Cassian doesn’t stop. No one has ever let Cassian Andor say _stop_ before, because there’s always a point to hurting, and he wants Bodhi to know this, too. You’ll get innocents killed; you’ll do a thousand terrible things; and there will forever be missions and mishaps. Spreading your legs wider and letting them take whatever they want, because you’re a tool for the Rebellion and you’re strong and you’re _not scared._

He picks up the speed and rhythm, wet slick skin slapping, swelling-- he’s half-sitting in Bodhi’s lap while he jerks him--

“Stop,” Bodhi says again. “That’s enough. _Enough._ ” 

A twist of Cassian’s hand, and then Bodhi groans, eyes rolling backward, and Cassian can’t take it, he’s unzipping his pants, he’s dragging his hips against Bodhi’s--tearing aside the wires in his way as if it were mere flimsiplast--

Bodhi may not be strong enough, but Cassian is.

Stars, it feels so good, his cockhead twitching and grinding against Bodhi’s, and gods, if only he was inside of him. But the raw rough friction is sufficient, and Bodhi says, “no, no, no,” in a hushed slurred mumble, futilely struggling against the bonds, and they’re coming, they’re both coming, sporadic and spurting. Cassian lets out a quivering breath, near collapsed while straddling him, and he sees the tears unshed in the corners of Bodhi’s eyes.

Bodhi closes his eyes, and the tears fall. Cassian watches the shining trail of it, and he sighs, zips up his trousers. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was -- a little too much.” 

Bodhi says, weary, “I told you to stop. You shouldn’t have--” He sees something in Cassian’s expression that makes him pause. “Never mind. Just cut me loose. Please.” 

Cassian takes out his pocket vibro-knife and snips off the wire in several efficient motions. His and Cassian’s spend still splattered on his pants and shirt, his skin crisscrossed with wire cuts, Bodhi unsteadily wobbles to his feet. 

Cassian catches him. “Sorry,” he repeats, a lump in his throat. He clings to him, and Bodhi lets out a low bitter sound like a laugh before he starts to sob. Cassian had wondered what death would taste like, his poison capsule crushed with the right final clench of his jaw. He kisses Bodhi’s tear-damp face and thinks it probably tastes something like this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Further content warnings: Bodhi asks Cassian to help him process his trauma with Bor Gullet. Cassian agrees and holds a ‘desensitization’ session involving bondage. Bodhi confesses to things he’s done as an Imperial cargo pilot (this scene contains allusions to genocide and slave trafficking). It turns sexual, and Bodhi withdraws his consent - which Cassian purposely disregards and rationalizes away due to his own trauma and worldview warped by the war. Nothing is okay!


End file.
